Way back to Our Past

24. Have You Found Dad?

Translator: Snowball

“It won’t take long. As soon as Mommy gets everything ready, she’ll come to pick Tangtang up!”

“Mommy, have you found dad?” Tangtang asked.

“Not yet! Tangtang, you have my word. You’ll have a dad soon!”

“Mommy, no rush! I can wait.”

Holding the kid in her arms tightly, Qu Wan burst into tears again. “Tangtang, I’ll take you away with me soon and we’ll never be apart again.”

“Wanwan, if you’re tired from work, come back. I’d like to take care of you and Tangtang,” Xiaoyu said with a sigh.

Qu Wan shook her head. “Xiao Yu, you’ve helped me too much over the years. I don’t want to trouble you anymore.”

“You owed me nothing. I’m willing to do everything for you.”

“But it makes me feel guilty. Xiao Yu, you deserve a better woman. Don’t waste your time on me anymore.”

Letting out a sigh, Xiao Yu continued after quite a while, “Wanwan, whenever you want to come back, I’ll be here waiting for you.”

Qu Wan stayed with Tangtang for a week before she flew home.

She was caught dumbfounded when she went to work and heard about all the incredible things that had happened during her absence.

The next day she had left, Chen Kai, the son of Director Chen of the Urban Construction Bureau was found taking drugs in the KTV. When the policemen arrived, they were taken aback by what they saw in the box.

Chen Kai cut off a hand and a foot of his own due to hallucinations caused by a drug overdose!

When the police went to Chen’s house to investigate, someone reported that Director Chen had a large sum of counterfeit money in his apartment.

The police then started searching and found a few huge cases full of counterfeit notes in the basement, with the face value of a total of ten million!

After a bunch of dirt on him, like corruption, taking bribes, drug trafficking, and printing fake money were dug out, Director Chen became the target of public criticism.

The disclosure of the news touched off a public uproar. Mayor Jiang ordered the relative departments to see into this case and punish the lawbreaker severely.

With his fame falling into disrepute overnight, Director Chen was under scrutiny and it was obvious that couldn’t escape being severely punished.

At the same time, bidding for the reconstruction of the old town started in full swing.

As Ling Mubai was confident that he would win the project, he didn’t pay much attention to the bidding and only put two executives in charge.

On the contrary, Wang Zicheng took the matter seriously. He led his team to the bidding site in person, showing his determination to win.

As everyone expected, after a few rounds of screening, all the bidders were eliminated except for the Wangs and the Lings.

The municipal leaders invited a number of urban construction experts to evaluate the business plans of both companies, but as these experts found the two sides were neck to neck, they couldn’t decide which party should be in charge of the project for the moment.

Ling Mubai was surprised at the news, but he still didn’t attach particular importance to this project.

If it were somebody else of the Wang family who had come to bid, he would have studied the countermeasures carefully. However, as far as Ling Mubai was concerned, Wang Zicheng was only a foppish childe who would pose no threat to him.

How could a dandy who spent most of his time on women be his rival?

As the local power, the Lings had an advantage over the Wangs. Ling Mubai had visited those people in the relevant departments and given them a lot of benefits. Moreover, he had Mayor Jiang as his backing. Therefore, he didn’t take Wang Zicheng seriously at all.

However, he had never expected that Wang Zicheng would have been able to make it to the final round of the bidding. “Seems this affluent second generation is not that useless as I imagined!”

He had to admit that he underestimated his rival and he had realized that he should be warier of the Wangs in the future.

When she came back, Qu Wan found in surprise that Lin Yiyi had been put back in charge of the dating show.

She had no idea why Ling Mubai suddenly changed his mind. Maybe he still had a bit of sense of conscience!

As some of the male guests for the dating show were rich and handsome, when Lin Yiyi heard that Qu Wan was looking for a boyfriend, she suggested her to dress herself up so as to catch the attention of those male guests as soon as she walked onto the stage.

It would be great if Qu Wan could both make money and find a suitable man to marry through this dating show!

After hesitating for a while, Qu Wan rejected her suggestion. She decided to appear in the show without makeup, wearing her current plain dress and a mask.

She was serious about finding a man to marry and she didn’t want to cheat on that person, so she put it clearly in her profile that she had married once and had a boy more than two years old.

Tangtang had urged her again on the phone this morning, so she had to find him a dad asap.

After managing to have Lin Yiyi submit her information, Qu Wan walked into the studio.

According to the rule of the show, a male guest would exchange the rose in his hand for a chance to ask a question to his favorite female guest.

If the female guest had feelings for the male guest as well, she could ask back. If both sides were satisfied with each other, the female guest would remove her mask and have a second round of interaction with the male guest.

Since Qu Wan had stated in her profile that she had a son, and she dressed as plainly as a country girl, by the end of the first episode of the program, no male guest had chosen her. She had expected this to happen, so in spite of awkwardly standing on the stage for two hours, she didn’t feel anything wrong.

After recording the show, she didn’t leave until Lin Yiyi getting off work.

As they walked out, Lin Yiyi couldn’t help but complain about the poor taste of those men.

“It doesn’t matter. If the two are really predestined, they’ll meet with each other sooner or later,” Qu Wan said calmly.

Three days after the bidding, as Ling Mubai was so confident of winning the project that before the result came out, he had already gotten ready for a press conference.

However, he was stunned when the result of the bid was announced.

Unable to accept the fact that he had lost the bid to Wang Zicheng, Ling Mubai repeatedly confirmed the result with the bid unit a few times.

Before he could tell what was going on, his phone rang. “Mubai, what’s wrong? How come we lost the project?” Sun Lan asked on the other end of the line.

“Mother, relax. I just heard of the news. I’m going to talk to you later after I checked things up,” Ling Mubai answered, managing to hold back his irritability.

Burning with anger, Sun Lan hung up and then dialed Qin Surong’s number.

Qin Surong had promised her to help Mubai win the bid, but how come the result was totally out of their expectation? The first thing that came to Sun Lan was Qin Surong must have thought that her daughter’s marriage to Mubai was a done deal, so she had put everything else behind!

Qin Surong was shopping and she was surprised as well when she heard the news from Sun Lan. “Calm down! I’m going to check with Zhendong right away,” she said.

Jiang Zhendong was in a meeting when he received the call from Qin Surong. “This is the decision of the municipal leadership, and I can’t change anything. You’d better stay out of it!“ he said, sounding a little impatient.

Though the result of the bidding was decided by the municipal leaders after consultation, Jiang Zhendong’s advice made a great difference.

As the Wangs had been focusing on overseas business, they were not very influential in the domestic market. The municipal leadership decided to attract investment from abroad to boost up the local economy, so they attached great importance to the representative of the Wangs who had just returned from abroad.